CHAPTER VII

We came in toward the shores of Odo Island at ten minutes to midnight. Bill Cuff and Skagarach and Trutch and I were sitting on the top of the bow ramp in the lead boat, straining our eyes toward the small forested bit of earth ahead. Starshine showed us a broken coastline of rock that didn't look passable, not for a monkey. I said so. Bill Cuff muttered, "We can make it."

Behind us crowded the cave beasts, each of them equipped with at least one weapon; some had grenades slung in belts over their shoulders, others carried .45 revolvers, tommyguns, and rifles. Skagarach had apologized for not giving me a gun. He said that of course they couldn't trust me that far yet. I said it was okay. I had my own automatic and thank God they hadn't discovered it.

Bill Cuff said now, "Tell them to bring the boats in just under the rocks, Skagarach."

Yellow-hair nodded and then after a moment had passed and he had not moved, I said, "He isn't doing it," to Bill in a tone of inquiry.

"He's done it. He telepathed it to them."

"Why didn't you?" I asked. Cuff, looking very annoyed, stared away from me, and Skagarach laughed maliciously. "He can't telepath as smoothly as I, I'm afraid."

"Then why is he first leader?" I asked, chancing another swat on the head.

Bill Cuff, however, only stared at Skagarach evilly and said, "Because I'm the strongest of us all, and the smartest."

"That's not my opinion," said Skagarach.

"I'll show you proof if you want it," shouted Cuff angrily, but the yellow-haired one shook his head. "Not now, not now. This is our night."

The boats slid in beneath the walls of rock and the pilots skilfully halted them inches from the island. There was no way to go ashore except to leap to the rock and clutch and clamber upward. The rock wasn't sheer, but it was rough and cold and if not actually dangerous, at least mighty uncomfortable. At midnight the first Neanderthal--Bill Cuff--jumped from the first boat, and at 12:06 two hundred of us stood on the island of Odo.

It was very dark here, darker than it had been on the sea; there were trees everywhere. But I found I could see outlines without trouble, if not actual features within those outlines. Looking around me, I saw in this way the figure of a woman, and knew it was Nessa.

"Nessa! How did you get here?" I said, shocked. "You oughtn't to climb--"

"Trutch carried her on his back," said Cuff. "Now shut up. Here we go."

As we moved off toward the center of Odo, I grasped my wife's arm. She seemed to draw away slightly. "What is it?" I whispered.

"I don't know. I--they've told me what this is about, and you seem to be one of them," she said uncertainly.

What to do? Reassure her? In the midst of these keen-eared, ravening animals? "I don't know," I said. "I don't really know where I stand. Except that I feel mad clean through." That was for the Old Companions' benefit. At the same time I gently squeezed her arm twice, and catching her eye, winked. But in the dimness of the forest, I couldn't be sure she'd seen it.

We moved along an autumn-smelling trail that wandered through trees from which leaves fell in a constant erratic shower. The air was cold, a touch of sea-wind pimpling my flesh. I was in the forefront of the horde, with Cuff and Skagarach, Old One and Trutch and my wife Nessa. Now a scout came running back toward us, his gait a half-ape, half-dog loping. He spoke to Cuff in the hoarse brief gutturals of their primitive tongue.

"Trip-wires ahead," Cuff said. "Tell 'em, Skagarach."

* * * * *

The first warning devices, evidently: wires that would set off signals in the headquarters of the Marines, doubtless, when anyone stumbled across them. Bill Cuff laughed. We marched on until the scout halted us with a gesture. Bill picked up Nessa and ran forward and leaped into the air, graceful, a great cat of a man. There were four wires at varying heights. Warned of them, we cleared them all. I would have touched one, but Trutch was at my side watching me.

Now we slowed our pace while more scouts prowled ahead. In about five minutes we were halted again, this time by an eight-foot fence of barbed wire whose strands were only inches apart. "Oh, for God's sake," said Cuff, "they plant barbed wire in the woods and leave the trees hanging over it. How knuckleheaded do they think an enemy'd be? Climb up and jump over." He looked at Nessa. "I think we'll leave you here," he said slowly. "Ray cherishes your safety--and I might want a check on his loyalty. Trutch, keep her safe." The big-eared, lank-haired brute folded a paw over her wrist and dragged her to one side. I said sharply, "Treat her easily, you damn orangutan!" and started after them, till someone's open hand caught me on the chest and shoved me rudely on my tail. I got up and Nessa was gone.

We moved into the trees. I shinnied up a smooth trunk for a couple of feet. Topping the fence, we launched ourselves into space--we looked like dark monkeys pouncing on a farmer's garden--and came to earth with soft thuds and here and there a jolted grunt. We went forward once more.

Now the trees were thinner and up ahead there were strange gleams and reflections in a darkness that appeared deeper than that which we had left behind. Of course, the canopy that looked like forest from the sky; and beneath it, the buildings and the field and the man-made moon. My blood grew a little colder. The incredible consequences of this expedition, if successful, hit me with the kick of a shod hoof. The end of man ... _the end of man_ ... words so staggering you couldn't actually take them in. The end of man. Thanks to me....

The Old Companions were bunched, two hundred strong in a great knot of dimly-seen figures. Bill Cuff said to Skagarach, "Have them spread out. We go in from this side on a wide front."

Skagarach sent the mental order, and the crew thinned and left us. "You stick with Vance," my cousin said to me. "Just do as you're told. He'll keep you near me, but out of my hair." He bent toward me. "No funny stuff," he said malignantly. "No whooping and hollering to wake 'em up, Ray, boy. No last-minute regrets."

"No, Bill, no regrets." The falsehood of the century, I thought.

Vance carried a big .45 Colt. He was the squat young lug I'd met in the car. He prodded me with the barrel of his weapon and waved me off to the right. Now we were in a line, barely visible to one another, and we began to move slowly over the level ground, crouching, being as silent as so many shadows. I stepped on a stick and broke it and Vance dug his revolver painfully into my ribs.

_I had to warn the humans!_ My fate and--yes, even Nessa's, didn't matter worth a tinker's dam. All the important personal conceits and fears and longings were flushed out of me now. If I'd been a coward, I was now not a strong man, but simply a _man_, and I'd been absorbed into my race and made its representative. If I was torn apart by these throwbacks it wouldn't even hurt.

But I didn't have an idea in my head.

* * * * *

We neared the field, and its diffused lighting, so like that in the blue cavern, showed me and my fellow attackers the shapes of monstrous unknown creations of metal, of square housings and low machine shops and sheds and barracks. Vance drew a little ahead of me. I heard him cock his Colt. And the idea I had determined to have came to me. It wasn't much of an idea. But the instant it struck me I put it into action, because I was facing great brute force and had no time for complex plots or civilized reasoning.

I took one swift step forward and smacked Vance behind the shoulder as hard as I could, an overhand blow with every ounce of muscle I could summon. At the same time I drew my automatic from beneath my jacket.

The reflex I'd hoped for was Vance's instinctive yank on the trigger of that .45. Instead he moved to the side, swung his upper torso around, and fired point-blank at me.

His slug scorched along my ribs under the left arm, a leaden chunk of fire; I fell sideways and snapped a shot back at him. It was luck; I blew in his eye and tore out the back of his head.

He fell on top of me, and I squirmed around and shoved his body away.

At the sound of the shots every Old Companion leaped forward. That saved my skin. I hurled Vance off me, leaped up, and ran on to catch the Neanderthals, my torn side shrieking in pain.

A form cut across before me and a hand clamped on my arm while our forward charge continued. Skagarach's fox-face dipped sidelong toward me and he said, "What was it? Who did it?"

"I think it was Cuff," I panted.

"_What?_"

"Looked like him. Whoever it was, he scored on me."

"Bad?"

"Not very."

"It couldn't have been Cuff," he growled, half to himself. "Primal rage isn't primal idiocy!"

"Somebody was idiotic," I said. We were nearing the field and the lights were brightening. I could see men running from the barracks and the sheds.

"We'll find out who it was. By God!" he said, lifting his voice. "When this is done, you'll see the fool's head torn from his shoulders!"

Then the field lit up around us and the machine guns started to chatter.

It must have been automatic, the banks of searchlights must have been triggered by our vanguard crossing electric eyes on the edge of the field. But the Marines, warned by my shot, were at their gun emplacements and ready. Several dozen Neanderthals died in that first couple of seconds before we all went to earth. I heard the choking screams and the thunk of bullets striking flesh. I dove to the ground. The air whined just over my head and I knew I hadn't hit dirt an instant too soon.

I hoped that Bill Cuff, that magnificent target, had been chopped in half....

Cuff's grenaders got into action then. There was the crump-crump and the screeching as grenades tore holes in earth and sandbags and metal and men. A Neanderthal stood up just in front of me and peered forward against the lights' glare to check on the damage, and as I looked up at him I saw the entire top of his skull explode as a dozen slugs hit it. There were more grenades and then a tommygun opened up. I crawled forward.

Only the powers that be know why there were only forty Marines on Odo Island. There should have been four hundred. I suppose they counted on the dead secrecy to guard it. That, and the assurance that no foreign power could get within fifty miles of the place. Who could have foreseen Neanderthals from a past age in crepe-soled shoes?

The Marines took a fearful toll of the Old Companions before they were obliterated. Within four or five minutes they had been overpowered and smashed into the bloody earth; but no more than seventy Neanderthals stood over their bodies and looked toward the great wheel-shaped satellite. I was sick to see that Bill Cuff and Skagarach were among them. And Old One, the true primordial brute, was there, though his left arm hung useless and dripped gore.

Then, before any of us could even speak, the sheds and barracks erupted more men: the eighty workers, hard strong men--and they too were armed.

My hopes soared, even as the submachine guns began to talk in staccato bursts of ear-piercing sound.